CNN: Space shuttle Discovery lights up night sky

Discovery lights up night sky
December 9, 2006



KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Florida (CNN) -- The space shuttle Discovery rocketed into the darkness Saturday evening, the 117th shuttle flight and the first night launch in four years.

"And liftoff of the space shuttle Discovery, lighting up the nighttime sky as we continue building the international space station," said NASA TV announcer George Diller.

Liftoff was at 8:47 p.m. ET.

Minutes before liftoff, mission control told the crew to "pave the way for space exploration."

Discovery's crew of seven is under the leadership of Commander Mark Polansky; it is his second trip to space. Five crew members are making their first trip to space.

By 9:00 p.m. ET the crew was in orbit, NASA officials reported....

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/12/09/space.shuttle/index.html

Glad to see they are safe and hoping for a safe return. Now when is damn shuttle going to be scrapped and when do we go back to the drawing board???

The shuttle is still needed for US commitments to the International Space Station, but after that, we get the Orion project.

Orlando, Florida.

Maybe '72.

We were wasted..
Just wasted..

And we could hear it.

They took all of the combat vets up to the roof.

I will never forget it. And I don't even give a damn about space stuff.

from my pop's house 14 miles south of the launch pad.

I could see it but I couldn't hear anything but the wind and the birds.

But I remember that it looked as if was spurting upward, not real fluid.

I was a couple of weeks back from getting kinda fucked up in The Bad Place (SE Asia) and the feeling of the moonshot's absolute freedom from the Earthly coil was exhilarating.

It's a little late, but welcome home.

We tried to get you home sooner.

It is about 140 miles north of me, but a night launch is still a sight to behold. I've seen plenty of daytime launches, but they're not so spectacular from so far away.

I saw a daytime launch from Kissimmee some years ago (about as close as Orlando), but I couldn't hear it.

from Payne's Prairie. At least a couple of 100 people out there. It was awesome.

Third night launch I've seen from there.

The one big difference is that in the past it was hard to find out what was going on with the launch from there. Now so many people have satellite radio, we could listen to the countdown and watch the launch while it happened.

but since we moved from Tampa to west of Gainesville we haven't been back. I loved it at Payne's Prairie so much we looked for a place here in Gilchrist Cty where my parents were born. Can you get into PP if you aren't camping to see the launch? I imagine it would be a great place to see it. I totally forgot to go out to see if we could see it from here. It was really cold for Florida that night, wasn't it?

Alexandria, Virginia. Specifically, the steps of the Masonic Temple. I was a crowd of one, unless the cop who had stopped nearby did so to watch the Shuttle too. There were three other people as well who were standing around, but they weren't looking for the Shuttle. It became visible about five minutes after launch and moved quickly off to the northeast.